Alester's True Accomplice

The Moriarty Museum is less than a kilometer from the Red Queen District Supervisory Office.

This is so that the Bureau of Supervision can arrive immediately in the event of a robbery or theft at the museum. The proximity also makes it convenient for Iver to pick up and drop off Shadow Fiend.

Iver sat comfortably in his office chair, sipping tea and reading the newspaper, quietly awaiting good news.

Only when Lily quietly emerged from the shadows behind him did he speak softly, asking, "Did you find it?"

"We found it this time."

Lily whispered back, "It is indeed here."

She was somewhat surprised— Iver actually knew the secret of this underground chamber! Iver knew why Lily was surprised and couldn't help but laugh out loud.

Of course he knew.

Iver not only knew the exact location of the Bureau of Supervision's underground secret chambers... but he knew all four of them.

The Shadow of Shadow of Avalon expansion was the first main storyline he completed after skipping the earlier ones. Returning to Avalon back then meant running around the entire map – places that were previously off-limits in Avalon had now become bases for various secret organizations and resistance groups, or simply dungeons.

The main tasks at the time involved running around in one restricted area after another to relay messages to different organizations.

Of course, Iver knew the location of the mechanisms. Since the Bureau of Supervision hadn't been abolished yet, going in openly to activate them was out of the question—but going through the ventilation ducts would solve the problem.

Lily can transform into shadows, while Shadow Fiend can also transform into liquid and flow freely. Previously, Shadow Fiend couldn't leave Iver's side, but now, with Lily as a "mother-child router," Shadow Fiend's signal can be carried far away.

So they followed the ventilation duct location given by Iver and flowed back into the tightly closed cell.

Iver didn't know exactly where the two people would be imprisoned, but he knew without a doubt that it would be one of the four underground chambers.

There are only four in total, so we can find them all by exhaustive search.

As long as nothing goes wrong in the underground cell, this is their only option. The more important the prisoner, the more strictly they must be kept in order, following the rules completely so that if anything goes wrong, they can be blamed. That way, it can only be said that the enemy is too strong, not that it was their negligence.

Glass Island is a prominent peninsula, almost surrounded by the sea on three sides. Excluding the municipalities surrounding the metropolitan Metropolitan District, the core area consists of only four districts—from the inland area in the northwest to the sea in the southeast: the largest Metropolitan District, the Red Queen District, the White Queen District, and the second largest Lloyd District.

There are four underground cellars used to hold important criminals: two in the Red Queen District, one in the White Queen District, and one in the Metropolitan District. Given the security situation in Lloyd District's Lloyd District, such a facility was not installed there.

The bishop's house was in the Red Queen District, so Iver and Lily decided to start their search from the nearest area.

She didn't find him at the first place; there was neither Lloyd nor Boca. Instead, she encountered some people Lily didn't recognize, so she quietly left again.

They were lucky; they found it on their second try.

To prevent the ability to leave a shadow, Iver specifically instructed Shadow Fiend to completely envelop Lily.

The Shadow Demon grasped the concept instantly and even created a unique physique. It was a better figure than Lily's, with more defined abdominal and arm muscles—supposedly designed to resemble the Assassin Miss.

"Did you leave the ring behind?" Iver breathed a sigh of relief and asked.

"Yes, I left the ring behind."

Lily nodded.

Keeping Noble Red Ring on your person is always a potential problem, but carelessly discarding it only makes the issue more obvious. And now is the perfect time—

Lloyd President was devoured by the Shadow Fiend, leaving no trace of his existence. Without leaving anything behind, people might have assumed he escaped from prison.

But having the Noble Red Society's ring so conspicuously displayed on the bed... that becomes a provocation. It could completely draw the Bureau of Supervision's attention to the Noble Red.

"By the way, young master."

Lily said somewhat nervously, "He left behind some last words before he died, and I had Shadow Fiend eat them."

Iver was slightly taken aback upon hearing this.

He pressed further, "What's the content?"

"He seems to have mistaken Shadow Fiend's voice for mine," Lily said. "I can't see it clearly, but Shadow Fiend said... he wrote ' Aleister,' 'woman,' ' Noble Red.'"

"Although the content is wrong... I think if Aleister were truly a woman of Noble Red birth, she would be very nervous upon seeing this and would erase the evidence... Did I do the right thing, young master?"

Upon hearing this, Iver breathed a sigh of relief.

He laughed and said, "You did something wrong—but that's precisely why you did something right."

"High-ranking Law Mage on the Path of Authority can recall the last actions of the deceased. Even if you erased the blood-written words, they can retrieve them from his recollections."

"But it's obvious that someone of Aleister's status shouldn't know this kind of knowledge. So it's only natural that he would erase it."

This can be considered a case of turning a clumsy attempt into a successful one.

"It seems I can prepare to return," Iver praised. "Thanks to you, Lily. You completely distinguished me from Aleister."

Moreover, this would explain why Iver is unharmed—he already had a legendary romantic history, and this would only add another chapter to it.

Of course, this is the explanation given to the general public. People prefer interesting news to factual news. So, Iver prepared content that caters to their tastes, things they're more willing to listen to... at worst, it just damages his own reputation.

But on the other hand, it's not a big deal if his reputation gets damaged one or two more times.

When faced with official questioning, Iver had prepared another excuse—secret information involving the supernatural that the authorities would not reveal.

However, Lily was still a little worried. "With the Lloyd President being murdered... will the Bureau of Supervision step up its investigation? Should we go into hiding again?"

"No need."

Iver shook his head. "In fact, it's more reasonable for me to return at this time. Only then will Shadow Fiend be away from me, giving me a chance to escape."

"If we wait a few more days, it will feel unnatural."

—Not to mention, the Bureau of Supervision doesn't really care whether the Lloyd President is alive or not.

Iver thought to himself.

He knew that Tommy Lloyd must have a lot of dirt on people.

But that giant certainly didn't know that such a thing, if it had even a little bit of use, wouldn't be completely useless.

If there were only a few or a dozen problematic knights in Avalon, then his intelligence would indeed be valuable... but the opposite is true; there were only a dozen or so completely innocent knights.

So his intelligence was actually just a handle for political struggle.

Finding leverage is easy, isn't it? That's exactly what the Inspectorate does.

In fact, Lloyd had never received a proper knightly education. Although he inherited the name Lloyd, he knew nothing about the rules and secrets of the upper echelons of Avalon —because Iver knew that this generation of Lloyd was actually a "cheater".

He was not qualified to be Lloyd at all; he killed the true heir, Rowetta, and forcibly seized the name of Lloyd.

The evidence is... Tommy simply doesn't have the talent to get into the business.

His death was unrelated to the main storyline. It didn't even happen within the player's field of vision. Instead, the Ms. Gray-Green killed him entered the instance.

As a Lloyd, he did not leave behind any adopted sons.

Because he disliked humans, he wanted to adopt Mixed-Blood Giant like himself as his foster son. However, he also worried that the other person would kill him as he had killed his father. In his view, giants were indeed capable of such an act.

In other words, Lloyd's legacy ended with him.

Tommy's sister—the Lady Rowetta whom he had murdered—also returned in the Shadow of Shadow of Avalon boss. She died with resentment and was branded with the Great Sin Imprint by the Fallen Angel; her remaining memories and soul transformed into Dream Demon.

The sacred sword was once sealed by the half- Dream Demon Merlin, and to break the seal, another Dream Demon must be found. But Dream Demon are extremely rare... and the only one Iver remembers is Rowetta.

After defeating her, she mentioned that Bishop Mathers had visited her not long ago.

Iver will reforge the Holy Sword sooner or later. There's still a Greater Phantom Demon of the Light Attribute hidden within it.

By then, finding Rowetta would be essential to the ritual. Killing Tommy was also one of the three conditions she would give him to help the protagonist's team later. The reason Iver knew Tommy was already dead was because he couldn't find Tommy in this quest chain. Because Tommy had already been killed by Gray-Green.

The Bureau of Supervision would detain Lloyd, which, in Iver's view... was actually a sting operation.

Just as Iver had told Sherlock before, sometimes the threat is more powerful than the cannibalism—as long as they can't access Lloyd, Lloyd's presence will continue to put pressure on them.

The value of Lau as bait far exceeds the value of what's inside his belly. The Noble Red certainly wants to kill him, and some impatient knights also want to silence him. That's why the Bureau of Supervision has imprisoned him in an absolutely secure secret chamber.

The only miscalculation the Bureau of Supervision made was that they didn't expect someone to be more familiar with the secret room than they were.

But conversely, precisely because of this... it doesn't really matter whether Lloyd is alive or dead. Because no one can be sure he's dead... so as long as the news of his death at Aleister's hands doesn't leak out, Tommy is essentially alive.

Therefore, the Bureau of Supervision would absolutely not launch a large-scale search for Aleister. Instead, they must keep the information that Aleister killed Tommy completely secret, and most inspectors would not even know that Tommy was dead—he was still constantly "producing intelligence," so how could he be dead?

They could only target the Noble Red. They could use that ring as evidence that the Noble Red Society had stormed the Bureau of Supervision and attempted to rescue Tommy Lloyd. And of course, they failed—it was precisely because they failed that they could obtain the ring as proof of their identity, wasn't it?

From this perspective, the real accomplice that Iver chose for Aleister was neither Shadow Fiend nor Lily.

Not even Boca or Noble Red...

Rather, it is the Bureau of Supervision itself.

—Or rather, the Grand Guardian of Avalon.

I'm going to grab a bite to eat, I'll be back to write Chapter Two!